It is known in the prior art to convey articles along a conveyor, and the problem of maintaining any necessary separation between these articles being conveyed has been solved in different ways. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,121 to Wahren shows conveying object carriers between stations on a continuously moving conveyor surface with buffers of elastic rings between said carriers. Upon halting of a carrier such as at a workstation, upstream carriers may continue to be forced in a downstream direction and the elastic rings are compressed with an increase in article feed line pressure increases. Upon compression, the rings expand outwardly to frictionally engage a braking surface such as sidewalls of the conveyor and thereby slow the carriers down to avoid a moving carrier from directly striking or being forced against a stationary carrier with excessive force.
Other devices and methods for conveying articles are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,613,034; 4,583,633; 4,227,606; 3,575,713; 3,049,214; 2,805,754; and 2,424,055.
However, these prior art devices are not generally directed to an economical, simple, and efficient apparatus and method for maintaining adequate separation between freely disposed articles on a conveyor, especially where portions of the articles should not touch any other object.